


Keep Fighting

by magicsophicorn



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Curse, F/F, Swan Queen Week 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 18:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3259997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicsophicorn/pseuds/magicsophicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything changed the day that Henry went into the mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Fighting

Everything changed the day that Henry went into the mine.

Regina stepped up into her personal space and begged her to save her son, and Emma suddenly understood just how much Regina loved him. And she finally saw all of Regina's anger and hostility towards her for what it really was: a defence mechanism. She was just afraid of losing Henry.

Emma knew then that she had made the right choice in giving him up for adoption. She had wanted to give him his best chance, with someone who would love him. Regina did love him, and Emma was so glad that he had ended up with her.

Emma decided that once she'd rescued Henry from the mine she would do everything she could to help him repair his relationship with his mother.

She didn't want to take him away.

But she was starting to think that she did maybe want to share him.

But first she had to save him.

\----------

Emma wanted to cry with relief as they approached the bright light of the surface.

"Henry take my hand!"

Graham was leaning over the edge of the hole and Emma pushed Henry up towards him as best she could while still hanging on to the rope holding them up.

As he scrambled up over the edge Emma felt a rush a relief wash over her.

Until he kicked the wrong rock.

It happened so suddenly there was nothing Emma could do.

Mountains of dirt and rock tumbled down on her. The rope snapped and Emma suddenly felt herself falling.

Everything went black.

\----------

There were voices.

Whose voices were they?

Henry? Regina?

Who were they?

And who was she?

Emma. She was Emma.

Her head hurt.

Everything hurt.

She blinked.

"She's coming around. Emma? Emma? Can you hear me?"

The world slowly came into focus.

"Ynngss," Emma tried to say yes. It didn't come out right.

"Just relax Emma. You're in hospital. You fell in the mine. You've been unconscious for… a while."

"Nnnnrrryy?"

Somehow the voice understood her.

"Henry's fine. He's been in to visit you every day with Regina. Now just rest, relax. You've still got a lot of recovering to do."

\----------

Everything seemed different somehow.

The doctors told her it was shock, that it would pass with time.

But Emma found it harder to think, and her memories often got confused.

She thought she remembered liking Regina, but that couldn't be right because Regina was punching her in the face.

So she punched her back.

But then there was the fire and Emma knew she had to save Regina.

As she helped the brunette out of the burning building she felt faint, and a hint of white tinged the edge of her vision. But she fought on.

After that it never stops.

It seems like every week she has to be the hero in some form or other.

She's so tired.

But she fights on.

_You have to keep fighting, Emma._

All the while Henry keeps talking about the curse and a voice in the back of her mind tells her she was supposed to do something about that.

Then there's murder accusations, and a mad hatter, and Emma feels close to breaking point.

Her head keeps pounding.

She'll have to go back to the doctor.

Tomorrow. Maybe.

She goes to see Regina. She wants to fix this. She thinks maybe she's managed to. They talk about it calmly and Regina gives her an apple turnover to take away.

For the first time in a while Emma feels good.

But then Henry is ranting about the curse and magic and poison and the whiteness at the edge of Emma's vision comes creeping back in.

Henry takes a bite out of the turnover and collapses.

He's in a coma but the doctor's can't explain it.

He had been right about the curse all along.

The thought makes Emma's head pound even harder.

She fights with Regina, but then she has that look on her face again, like that day at the mine, and Emma suddenly remembers it with perfect clarity. She remembers exactly what Regina said and how she felt. She remembers being glad that Regina was Henry's mother.

Not anymore.

But there's a way to save him.

True Love.

She just has to be the saviour. Again. She has to fight.

_You have to keep fighting, Emma._

Hadn't she been doing that enough already?

Emma heads down the lift shaft deep underground, memories of falling in the mine playing in her head. Why is it that she can't remember things properly anymore, except for the one day she desperately wants to forget?

The dragon is real.

She should be surprised, but she isn't.

She tries her best to fight it but she's never used a sword before.

The dragon knocks her aside like it's nothing and Emma hits her head on a rock.

She lies there stunned for a moment. She doesn't know where she is.

There's an ear splitting roar and a jet of flame flies over her head and she thinks she remembers.

She has to save Henry from the mine. No, not the mine, the dragon. Or was it the curse? She's so confused.

The dragon stalks towards her and with her last ounce of strength Emma throws her sword.

It hits its mark. Because she's the saviour. Probably. And Emma makes her way back up to the world above with the True Love potion.

Her head still hurts.

Gold yells down at her to throw him the potion and she does.

She's so tired.

When she makes it to the surface Regina is bound and gagged and Gold is nowhere in sight.

Some saviour she is.

She trusted the wrong person and now there's no way to save Henry.

They head back to the hospital in silence. Neither wanting to say that they're going there to say their goodbyes.

Emma looks down at Henry lying in the hospital bed and for a moment he looks so much like her that she feels faint.

She leans down and kisses Henry's forehead.

The whiteness that had been creeping on the edges of her vision for weeks explodes out from the kiss and envelopes the world.

\---------

"And that's how the hero saved them all from the curse…"

Tears started to fall down Henry's cheeks as he spoke, and Regina wrapped her arms around him and stroked his hair.

"It's all my fault mom," he sobbed.

"Shhh Henry, no, this isn't your fault," Regina tried to comfort him.

"But it is my fault!" He cried, "If I hadn't started believing in that story book then I wouldn't have gone in to the mine looking for proof, and then Emma wouldn't have…"

He trailed off as another wave of sobs wracked his body.

"I'm so sorry mom," he eventually whispered when his sobs subsided, "I just got so carried away, and the pictures in the book looked like you… But I know you're not evil and that you love me, and… I hope you can still love me even after how horrible I've been to you."

Regina felt her heart break at his words.

"Oh Henry, of course I still love you. I will always love you, there is nothing you could ever do that would make me stop loving you."

She sighed.

"But I also owe you an apology as well Henry. I know I wasn't very nice to you, or Emma, recently. I was just so scared that Emma would take you away from me and I couldn't bear the thought of losing you."

He hugged her tighter.

"You won't lose me mom, I promise."

Regina felt her own tears begin to fall.

"And I promise Henry, that if Emma wakes up I will let her be a part of your life. A part of _our_ lives," she corrected.

Henry pulled back slightly and looked up at her with fear in his face.

" _If_ she wakes up? You… You think she might not wake up?" He said, his whole face crumpling.

Regina cursed herself for the slip. She had to be strong and hopeful, for Henry's sake.

"When," she said firmly, "I meant when she wakes up."

"Do you promise she'll wake up?"

"Henry… I… I can't make that promise, I'm sorry," it broke her heart to say it.

Henry sobbed once and ran out of the room.

Regina sighed as she stood. She leaned over and placed a soft kiss to Emma's forehead.

"Please come back to us. You have to keep fighting, Emma," she whispered before leaving the hospital room to try to find Henry.


End file.
